Theatre

My name is Matt Schweder Harper. I’m professor of theater and director of performance studies at Avila University and our theater partner. I’ve been here — well, this will be the beginning of my second year.

There’s lots of great opportunities for people who have all different interests in the theater here. One thing that I really love about this is that we’re a small enough program that everybody gets to work, and they really work. I’m a working professional actor as well as a teacher here, and I know as an artist that the only way to get better at what you do is to do it. And it’s the discipline of doing it, working at it, working on it. So it’s valuable and important to understand the theory and the philosophy behind everything, but it’s sort of useless if you don’t get to actually then apply it and try it out. So that’s one of the great things about our program — we learn in our classes during the day and then evenings we actually put it to the test in our productions, whether you’re working backstage or on stage.

One of my favorite things about Avila University as a whole, but particularly the department I have to admit, is that the culture is owned by the students. People here know that they’re going to get out of their education what they put into it, and so they put a lot into it. And to see people who actually make a mark on the university on their way through is a big thing. And so our legacy just keeps growing and growing and getting richer and richer with the kinds of people that we have here. So we’re very proud of the people that come through our program — it reflects on who you are.